RichardGoeken

Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife

Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife

Richard Goeken was “hired as Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife.” The Parks and Wildlife Solicitor’s office “provides legal counsel on matters regarding the administration of programs and activities of the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the biological research functions of the Geological Survey, and matters involving the acquisition and administration of the National Parks and wildlife refuges, the designation of wild and scenic rivers and wilderness areas, historic preservation, law enforcement, First Amendment activities, environmental protection, grants-in-aid, and endangered species protection.”

Richard Goeken “has over 20 years of legal experience,” representing interests in the oil and gas industries, “holders of water rights on or across public lands,” and other companies that use timber from public lands. While at Smith Currie, Goeken even worked on an Antiquities Act case challenging the “President’s use of the Antiquities Act to create a National Monument in California.”

Forest Landowners Association (Resource Development on Public Lands)

Richard Goeken has been a member of the Forest Landowners Association, a private forest ownership interest group that pushed Congress to classify wood as a renewable energy source for ethanol development.

Background Information

Previous Employers

At Smith Currie, Richard Goeken represented “members of the forest products, construction, and oil and gas industries, ranchers and grazing associations… and holders of water rights on or across public lands.”

According to his bio from Smith Currie, Richard Goeken “represents members of the forest products, construction, and oil and gas industries, ranchers and grazing associations, professional guides and outfitters, and holders of water rights on or across public lands.”

At Smith Currie, Richard Goeken worked on an Antiquities Act case where the firm “challenged the President’s use of the Antiquities Act to create a National Monument in California.”

At Smith Currie, Richard Goeken worked on an Antiquities Act case where the firm “Challenged the President’s use of the Antiquities Act to create a National Monument in California,” which they claimed the size of which “was vastly larger than necessary for its stated purposes.” Smith Currie represented a client that “sought review of lower court decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In 2015, Richard Goeken represented “12 timber companies and trade associations” that allied with the Fish and Wildlife Service to oppose “a legal challenge filed by the Center for Biological Diversity… over the extent of protections for the threatened northern long-eared bat.”

In 2015, Richard Goeken represented a timber company that won a case allowing them to cut roughly 100 million board feet of timber from “centuries-old trees” in the Tongass National Forest, most of which had “never been cut.”

In 2015, Richard Goeken represented Viking Lumber Co. a timber company that won their federal appeals case, clearing the way to “cut centuries-old trees from the Tongass National Forest.” Viking Lumber Co. stood to cut “roughly two-thirds” of the 150 million board feet of lumber in question, “most of it from tree stands that have never been cut.”

Richard Goeken represented a group of private landowners who sued the U.S. Forest Service, claiming their private land was damaged during a prescribed USFS burn.

In 2015, Richard Goeken represented a group of private landowners who sued the U.S. Forest Service for “the damages and costs” they claimed to their private land for a 2013 prescribed burn in South Dakota “that escaped.” As of August 2017, the case is still active and pending.

In a Wilderness Act case, Richard Goeken represented the City of Tombstone, Arizona, which sued to access a Wilderness Area “to repair damaged water pipelines” with mechanized equipment prohibited in wilderness areas.

Richard Goeken “represented the City of Tombstone, Arizona in Federal District Court to obtain access to a Wilderness Area… to repair damaged water pipelines with mechanized equipment. The use of such equipment in Wilderness Areas is generally prohibited.”

Richard Goeken was a member of a trade association for the California timber industry and “frequent donor to political causes and candidates.” In 2012, the trade association actively supported a bill that lowered their insurance and liability costs by limiting the federal government’s ability to levy “environmental penalties against timber companies for wildfire damage.”

In 2014, Richard Goeken was a member of the California Forestry Association, a trade organization of California sawmills, veneer mills, large industrial forest landowners, wood-fired powerplants, and other forest products producers. In 2012, the California Forestry Association backed a California state bill to “eliminat[e] regulatory fees on California timber firms, allo[w] extra time to harvest timber,” and reduce insurance and liability costs for California timber companies by “preventing the federal government from obtaining potentially unlimited environmental penalties against timber companies for wildfire damage.” The California Forestry Association, “a frequent donor to political causes and candidates,” spent $245,000 in 2007-2008 “lobbying state agencies on… climate legislation and the Air Resources Board policy on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Richard Goeken has been a member of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade organization for western timber companies that’s spent $3.7 million lobbying the federal government.

Richard Goeken has been a member of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade organization for western timber companies. Since 2001, the American Forest Resource Council has spent $3.73 million lobbying the federal government.

Richard Goeken has been a member of the Forest Landowners Association, which represents “privately owned forests” and has pushed Congress to reclassify wood as a renewable energy source “for the development of ethanol.”

Richard Goeken has been a member of the Forest Landowners Association, a group that represents “privately owned forests.” In 2007, the Forest Landowners Association pushed Congress to reclassify wood “as a renewable energy source” to market it “as an option for the development of ethanol.”

Richard Goeken has been a member of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, a timber product trade association whose member organizations “purchase, harvest, transport, and process timber” from BLM-managed lands. Since 2011, the Federal Forest Resource Coalition has spent $450,000 lobbying the federal government on timber issues.

Richard Goeken has been a member of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, which is a national timber trade association with “over 650 member companies,” who “purchase, harvest, transport, and process timber and biomass from the National Forest System and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Since 2011, the Federal Forest Resource Coalition has spent $450,000 lobbying the federal government on timber issues.

Financials

Other Information

Richard Goeken is a member of the Federalist Society, one of the “most powerful… [legal] organizations in the conservative orbit.”

Richard Goeken “is a member of the conservative Federalist Society,” one of the “most powerful and unique organizations in the conservative orbit, [that] describ[es] itself as ‘a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.'”